NEW YORK - The United States, where oil production has been declining since the 1970s, has the potential to boost its oil reserves fourfold through advanced injection of carbon dioxide into depleted oil fields, the Department of Energy said Friday.

The United States, the world's top oil consumer, has been successfully pumping small amounts or carbon dioxide into depleted oil and natural gas fields for 30 years to push out hard-to-reach fossil fuels.

The department said 89 billion barrels could potentially be added to current proven U.S. oil reserves of 21.9 billion barrels through injection of carbon dioxide, the main gas that most scientists believe is warming the Earth.

The amount is about what the United States, at current demand, uses in 12 years.

Adding billions of barrels in reserves is dependent upon the availability of commercial carbon dioxide, the department's fossil energy office said.

A United Nations report in September said that burying large amounts of carbon dioxide could play a big role in fighting global warming but would be a costly fix.

Electricity prices could typically rise by 25 to 80 percent if power plant operators adopted the technology, according the the report by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.